Never has an out-of-character moment felt more evolutionary, or more natural. It becomes the ultimate serenade for side chicks, a collection of half-ballads forsaking monogamy and reveling in the delight and confusion of short-term companionship. Inside them, he’s somehow evasive and affectionate in equal measure. The songs are carefully composed and finely layered. In a bit of irony, the new and improved Thot Breaker is Chief Keef’s most romantic work once merely a means to label himself the ultimate womanizer, he instead takes a 42-minute R&B sojourn, forging a project his contemporaries would make if only they could.
According to Keef producer CBMix, with whom he worked closely on the project, these are all new songs divorced from the original concept and context. More than two years later, with that version of Thot Breaker now an afterthought for all but the most diehard Keef fans, the Chicago prodigy has returned to the title in surprising fashion with renewed vision and purpose. The mixtape was eventually given a Valentine’s Day 2015 release date, with songs like “Fucked Your Ho” and “Thots Gone Crazy,” but it failed to materialize. When previews of rumored Thot Breaker tracks began surfacing elsewhere in 2014, it seemed like the wait for the tape was nearly over. The drill is gone, and now Keef is truly free.The Thot Breaker mixtape was originally teased more than a year earlier as a playboy manifesto made in the song’s image, but like many long-awaited Keef projects- Mansion Musick, UFOverload 2, and Crashing Computers among them-songs slowly leaked out and official versions never came. His 2017 mixtape Thot Breaker showcases this veer into pop, featuring him rapping over dancehall beats (“Can You Be My Friend”) and sounding startlingly romantic. Keef’s sound was a product of Chicago’s history of segregation and street gangs, and fame shined light on that ugly legacy, resulting in heightened scrutiny, real threats, and the mayor blasting him as “an unacceptable role model.” Keef moved to Los Angeles, adjusted his style, and declared himself the inventor of mumble rap, the slurry, eccentric sound co-signed by Future and more recently revised by Post Malone. Keef signed a multi-million dollar deal with Interscope and debuted with 2012’s Finally Rich, a drill-defining declaration of nihilistic not-niceness, followed by a celebrity-studded (Pusha T, Big Sean, Jadakiss) Kanye West remix of his “I Don’t Like.” But being an innovator became another kind of confinement. When a video of a local fan celebrating Keef’s freedom blew up, people around the world started seeking his mixtapes, and the Chicago drill genre was born-gritty, revenge-seeking rap that dropped listeners into the city’s South Side wars.
CHIEF KEEF BEST SONGS 2015 FULL
Chief Keef (born Keith Farrelle Cozart in 1995) had been charged with waving a gun at a cop and was posting music from lockdown: simple yet booming trap tunes full of matter-of-fact violence spit by a menacing voice with a gift for catchy repetition.
The day that a 16-year-old Chicago kid was freed from house arrest in 2012 was the day hip-hop shifted on its axis.